Prepare your perennials

Ruth gives her perennials some care before the summer

- Ruth Hayes

ONE of my favourite jobs at this time of year is tending to our perennials, making sure they are returning healthily after winter’s dormancy.

Some, such as our echinaceas and heleniums, will have died right back in autumn so it is always a relief to see their new shoots poking bravely through the soil. The leaves of others, including sea hollies and globe thistles, remain in place through winter so a job for now is to remove the old, tattered foliage to pretty up the plants and make room for new shoots.

The sea holly had a tough tap root

We mustn’t forget late spring and summer-flowering bulbs either. Our garden is blessed with light, free-draining soil so bulbs are less likely to rot when the soil is soaked by winter rain.

But having such open soil also means that available nutrients are more likely to be washed out by watering and the rain, so when perennial bulbs and other plants start to come back I fork in some blood, fish and bone or a branded fertiliser, then feed regularly with liquid tomato fertiliser once they are in flower.

I’ve also turned my attention to a sea holly ‘Blue Steel’ that has proved to be a profligate self-seeder in the past couple of years.

One of its offspring has been growing right on the side of the lawn a few inches from its parent. I’ve been waiting for it to get large enough to safely move and this week it was time to relocate it elsewhere in the garden.

Sea hollies are beautiful plants with more than 250 varieties. They like a sunny site and free-draining soil and are particularly well-suited to maritime gardens with salty air.